Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

Wales v France As is traditional in the M6N, the W6N Wales v France match was played on a Friday night. However, unlike the last M6N game, this one was played in front of a record crowd. The crowd that were there in person, and those watching on TV, were treated to a good match. That might seem like an odd thing to say about a match that ended up 33-5 but the Welsh defence stood up and made the French attack work, in response the French attack largely scored through absolutely top tier tries. There’s one that is seriously a contender for try of the year. Likewise, while the Welsh attack was largely unsuccessful, it was present and active. The French were forced to defend, and defend against a willing and eager attack. The result might not have been in doubt after a great first twenty minutes from Les Bleues, but this was one of the top sides against the third best side and a great warm-up for the French before they play England in the decider next week. On a more analytical basis, t...

This is Korean rom com that takes, as the rather unlikely basis for its romance, BDSM. A young career woman has never found romance. When the hot new man with the remarkably similar name transfers into her department she’s as interested as all the other women, but figures she has no chance. That similarity in names gives us the delayed meet-cute - a package for him is given to her by a lazy guy in the post room, she doesn’t check properly and opens it to find… a heavily studded collar. He tries to pass it off as a dog collar, and might have got away with it, but the box spills and a flyer for the BDSM place comes out. After some miscommunication, she realises she’s interested, he admits he would very much like to submit to her and they sign a temporary D/s contract. Although she’s a n00b, she’s diligent in her research. His level of experience is unclear - he’s clearly got more of a clue but while he’s shown at times to be what I’d consider to be a pretty heavy pain slut, deeply ...

Really there were two parts to this special. The bulk of the show, in terms of minutes at least, was a story about the Sea Devils returning and Chinese pirates across three centuries. It was a perfectly solid story although I’ll have to admit I needed to watch it twice to really take it in. The time travel aspect was nicely handled and wasn’t a silly timely-wimey loop with a reset button (Moffat, I’m looking at you) but someone smart using a time machine to try and work out what happened to a ship that mysteriously disappeared three centuries earlier. There are some rather dubious costume choices in places, but since Yaz is raiding the TARDIS’ wardrobes I’ll let most of them go. The Chinese swords - look, I played taijiquan for years, I learnt and taught dao and jian styles. I don’t know where they got those swords, but once they left the guards, the blades are not Chinese. Also, given the position of the characters we see wielding them, probably the wrong sort of blades. But, oh well...

This show deserves multiple trigger warnings for bullying, bullying of a sexual nature, sexual blackmail and extreme body horror. I expected the last one of those, it’s a zombie TV series, the others I will discuss relatively shortly but I need to say they almost made me stop watching and they’re not super-strong triggers for me, so if they are for you, I’d seriously steer clear. Relatively hot on the heels of Squid Game Korea and Netflix gives us All Of Us Are Dead a zombie drama set, in part, in a high school but spreading into the wider city as well. We have fast, smart zombies, always a lethal combination and the transformation is combined with spectacular body horror level contortions after someone is infected. The transformations en masse tick all the horror tropes, and impact, you’d want. But because the transformation takes a while from infection to turning into zombie it has moments of massive pathos as characters we’ve grown to like slowly change before our eyes. The hig...

What we were promised was an operatic ending. So I figured, since it’s about love, lust and death, I’d give a really quick breakdown of Carmen , then a more detailed breakdown of Killing Eve and look at whether it lived up to the claim, could it perhaps have been better if it had followed the operatic model more closely. So, Carmen … In essence, Carmen, who is a mad flirt, sets her sights on Jose, a soldier, who gets in trouble at work for her and ends up having to desert and join the smugglers with her. She gets bored of him, fancies the shiny new toreador (see massive flirt, above), and is about to go to him, when Jose catches her and stabs her. Jose is arrested and confesses to her murder. (It takes four acts and a lot of singing and fighting along the way.) It is all very tragic - as a deserter and a murderer, Jose is destined to be executed as well. On to Killing Eve … Rather than an episodic breakdown, I’m going to look at Villanelle's and Eve's emotional journeys, b...

As has been the way with this show, every season has a different writer, and while that had issues as we have to get to know the slightly different take this brings to the characters each time, it also serves to round them out them as we see different aspects of them as we understand them in different contexts in a way that the same writer would not achieve, probably not even attempt. It helps that each of the writers, possibly with input from the actors, gives us a take that is completely believable at their core. In season four, perhaps because they know it’s the last season, takes a long hard look at transitions. By their very nature, transitions have an ending as well as, sometimes at least, a new beginning. We have Carolyn transitioning from MI6 power player to revenge-driven defector. Villanelle turns her back on killing and becomes born-again. Eve seems to be turning into Villanelle, shooting people, killing them even, and all. Even Konstantin had found his happy place, not qu...

I’m not really old enough to remember the 60’s, my earliest memory that can be dated is to mid-July 1969, when I was four. This adaptation of the book looks and feels like it’s set in the 60’s but I wonder how much it feels like films and TV from the period, or set there more than it would resemble reality if we could travel back in time? Whatever the answer, it certainly feels right and so do the casting choices. The part of Harry Palmer was not written for Michael Caine, but he was pretty much perfect for the role. It would have been better if he was a northerner, from Burnley in fact, but the world at large think of him as a cockney now. Maybe being more true to the book would have helped, because we’re treated to another cockney Harry and there are times I’m irresistibly reminded of Caine's acting. But when I wasn’t, I completely enjoyed this new portrayal as well. I certainly enjoyed his (rather unexpected) posh love interest. As in both the film, and more particularly the b...

England v Wales This was an odd match, divided be events into more sections than the normal two. Roughly quarter of the way through, with the score 0-0, there was a long break as a player was taken from the pitch with a serious injury. Hopefully she’ll be OK for New Zealand but honestly I have my doubts. Straight after that England kept their focus, Wales didn’t, so the English scored two quick tries and ground one out later on. Wales became the first of the lesser nations not to have given up four tries, and a bonus point by half time. Even in the second half, Wales were keeping things close until a yellow card was brandished and against 15 fitter women the floodgates opened and stayed open for the remainder of the match. However, all is not rosy for the Red Roses. Wales disrupted their lineout repeatedly, even though the lineout and maul was their best weapon. Equally the backs only got b on the action after the yellow card when fatigue was playing a huge role on the Welsh defenc...

Ireland v France Last week I described Ireland v Wales as a battle between the dominant Welsh forwards and dominant Irish backs that, ultimately, proved the adage that it’s the forwards that decide who wins a rugby match. While I’d love to say that Wales are threatening France and England in all honesty they’re competing to be top of the chasing pack. Why all this about Wales in a match they weren’t involved in? Well France are better than Wales up front and much better than Wales in the backs. In this match it certainly showed. France had the bonus point wrapped up before half-time, and kept running in tries for fun. Ireland eventually scored a consolation try and while it was well-worked it was just about the only time they strung more than the odd flash of good play together without a pass going to ground or a great tackle stopping it dead or just losing the ball at the breakdown. Sometimes stats aren’t that useful but when Ireland cough the ball up 23 times it is an indication ...